Those who think that the object of salvation is flesh

 

Those who think that the object of salvation is flesh

 

Human beings are made up of body and spirit. The body and spirit are united to become a living organism. The spirit thus becomes an inseparable part of the union from man. However, the object of salvation from God is not the flesh, but the spirit. Ecclesiastes 12:7 『Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.』Flesh comes from dust and returns to earth. However, the fact is that the spirit returns to God.

In a conversation with Jesus and the Sadducees, Jesus answered the Sadducees' question about what happens to people when they die. In Luke 20:35-36, “But they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage: Neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection. In other words, the spirit united with the body dies, so it resurrects and returns to the angels.

 

Jude 1:6, “And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.” 2 Peter 2:4, “For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment.

Darkness and pits represent the material world. The spirit must be in the kingdom of God, which is the spirit world, and it is unnatural to be in this world. The angels who followed Satan received the wrath of God and became human because they were imprisoned in the ground. In the kingdom of God, Satan tempted many angels, thinking that he could become like God without God. So, the angels could not keep their position and followed Satan.

The story of Genesis 1-3 is an event in the Garden of Eden, but it shows what happened in the kingdom of God as the stage. God explains things before the foundation of the world through parables. The serpent symbolizes Satan, and Eve symbolizes the sinful angel who followed Satan. Adam is the image of Christ to give the body of sin to the evil angels. The fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil symbolizes Satan, who makes us think that we can become like God, and the fruit is greed given by Satan.

The spirit must put on the body of the spirit. It seems that the human spirit is confined in the flesh. He must take off the flesh and put on the body of the spirit. In 1 Corinthians 15:44, “It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.

When the saints are alive, their physical body must die before the spirit can receive the spiritual body. But in reality he can't kill his own body. So, the Bible introduces the fleshly body (the old man) that symbolizes the flesh. In Romans 6:3–4, “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

Baptism means the death of the old man (the fleshly body). In Romans 6:6, “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.”

The old man is the body of sin. It is the greed of wanting to be like God. All human beings think that they can become gods without realizing it. In Ephesians 4:22, “That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts.” The old man is greedy for the pursuit of the flesh. In 1 Corinthians 2:14, “But the natural man receivesth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”

Therefore, the Bible says that the old man (greed) must die. Jesus said to deny yourself. At this time, he himself becomes the subject of greed. The mind that is the self (soul) that originates from the flesh is the subject of greed. It is to deny this before the words of the Bible. He who denies himself, God gives life to the spirit. In John 6:63, “It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. The reason the old man must die is to save the spirit. All human beings are spirit-dead from birth. He is dead because the spirit is imprisoned in the body of sin. The death of the spirit means that the relationship with God has been severed.

To be born again is to be born again. Baptism is a form of being born again. The baptism of the heart is included in the formal baptism. The desire to become like God is to be projected onto Jesus Christ, who died on the cross, and to be born again with the risen Jesus Christ. To be united with Jesus who died on the cross, we must not forget that Jesus who died on the cross is “I”. Repentance is not about reflecting on your sins in this world, but about turning back your heart to become like God. So it goes back to God. The confession that the Apostle Paul said, “I die every day” must become my confession to become a born-again person.

Those who are born again are those who have received the body of an invisible spirit, like the body of Jesus' resurrection. So he sits at the right hand of God in Christ. Before the crucifixion, Jesus raised the dead many times. He raised Lazarus from the dead, raised the widow's son from Nain, and raised the daughter of Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue. Among the disciples of Jesus, Peter and Paul also appear in the book of Acts of raising the dead. The bodies of those who died and came back to life are merely bodies that must someday die again. So it can be said that it is revived.

Comparing the resurrected body of Jesus with the revival body,

The body that Jesus resurrected is a body that will never die. transcends time and space. The resurrected Jesus broke through the wall and appeared to his disciples, and his face was also transformed. On the road to Emmaus, his disciples did not recognize the risen Jesus. The revived body must die again.

However, most church members believe that the body of Jesus who died on the cross was resurrected. They believe that the body they received from their parents was transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit to become a body that has eternal life. However, the body that Jesus died on the cross is gone. And Jesus appears again to his disciples in his spirit body by the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus' resurrected body can change form. To show his disciples that there is a resurrection, Jesus transforms himself into a body with nail marks and spear marks and shows it to his disciples.

In the resurrection, the physical body that we received from our parents will disappear and we must be reborn as a spiritual body. However, if they believe that the physical body they received from their parents will be resurrected and come to life, their attention will be on the flesh, not on the spirit. So for some people, after death, the family freezes the dead body, and for others, it is buried without cremation. They believe that someday they will come to life in the Resurrection. But it's all in vain. In John 6:63, it is the Spirit that gives life, and the flesh is of no use. We must meditate deeply.